Gordon Campbell on the Murray McCully exit

In the end, Murray McCully chose to go quietly, and decided not to contest next year’s election on the National Party list. I’m not sure if McCully has worked out the final details of his farewell speech to his Cabinet colleagues, but Sydney Carton’s words from the scaffold in A Tale of Two Cities could always do the trick: “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.” Leaving has been his finest gift to caucus, and to the nation. Would that it had been done sooner, but welcome that it be done at all.

Still what a final year it’s been, right? Talk about going out in the style, accustomed. The McCully reforms at MFAT had (a) created havoc and loss of morale (b) cost a huge amount to implement to no discernible benefit in efficiencies and productivity and (c) took resources out of Europe that we now, post Brexit, sorely need… This year, the MFAT reform process culminated in the Auditor-General’s report into Paula Rebstock’s inquiry into leaks from MFAT, a witch-hunt by Rebstock that (a) cost some $288,000 to carry out and (b) resulted in unspecified payouts in damages to the two diplomats unfairly maligned by Rebstock’s findings and (c) incurred considerable costs in legal fees as well. Not to mention the lingering damage done to trust and accountability within MFAT via the entire process.

Moving right along, 2016 also saw New Zealand conclude its two year stint on the UN Security Council – another vastly expensive exercise to win and to implement, but with little visible achievement to show for it, or tangible benefit to this country. McCully however, won a few headlines back home about New Zealand being on the world stage, and over his grandiose plans to resolve the Palestinian question and the war in Syria.

Closer to home, the Auditor-General finally reported back this year on the $11.5 billion Saudi sheep deal, a pet project devised by McCully to placate a Saudi businessman miffed by our cancellation of live sheep exports. This deal was deemed necessary by McCully (a) to avert supposed legal action by the Saudi businessman that never took tangible shape and (b) to clinch a free trade deal with the Saudi kingdom that hasn’t eventuated. While finding no evidence of actual corruption on McCully’s part, the Auditor General cited a long laundry list of “unacceptable behaviours” in his briefings to Cabinet.

Oh, and then there was the Malaysian diplomat saga, where diplomatic immunity came and went at various stages of the negotiations with Malaysia, and where the terms of the subsequent inquiry into the fiasco precluded examination of the Minister’s role. All of this bull-in-a-china-shop trail of incompetence lead back to the Tourism Board scandal of 1999. Here’s how that one began:

The tempest, dubbed “Saatchigate” or “Dinnergate” by the local media, stems from last Aug. 31 when Jenny Shipley–New Zealand’s first female prime minister–had dinner at [Saatchi boss Kevin] Roberts’ home in Wellington. Saatchi had won the New Zealand Tourism Board’s $16 million ad account the previous month. In October, the Tourism Board increased its budget to a reported $26 million. At the time, most other public services were facing cuts.

Shipley, leader of the right-of-center National Party and a longtime acquaintance of Roberts, is accused by the opposition Labour Party of making a sweetheart deal by increasing the country’s Tourism Board business with Saatchi in exchange for the agency running the National Party’s upcoming election campaign at a discounted rate…

This affair snowballed into payouts to two Tourism Board officials. Some critics saw these payouts as hush money, and the Auditor-General eventually found them to be “unlawful” – although, supposedly, executed with the pure-hearted best interests of New Zealand tourism in mind. In the end, McCully resigned as Tourism Minister and the public lost hundreds of thousands of dollars:

Taxpayers now look less likely than ever to see the return of $340,000 paid to two former Tourism Board directors – despite a Government commitment to recover the money… The pair quit after conflict with the policy direction of Tourism Minister Murray McCully, who also resigned his portfolio over the row.

An early example in other words, of the classic McCully Mode of Management. Step one: overturn established best practice. Step two: ignore advice as being a reflection of vested interest, since you (always) know best. Step three: demand absolute compliance with the new direction, or else. Step four: create fearful acolytes and a hit list of enemies, real or imaginary. And most of all, step five: spend taxpayer money as if there’s no tomorrow, and don’t worry about the results, which are beside the point.

An inveterate plotter, McCully almost always came out on the side of the losing faction in any caucus power struggle, yet the victors were usually wary of his capacity for retribution, and would choose to placate him. In other words and as in his ministerial career, failure in his machinations proved no barrier to McCully’s personal advancement. Still… even though Sidney Carton does only one good thing, it is impossible not to feel compassion for him in the end. Carton’s other big quote, after all, was: “I care for no man on earth, and no man on earth cares for me.” Alas poor Murray, we knew him only too well.

There’s always the foreign legion

At such a time, this old music hall chestnut from The White Horse Inn seems entirely appropriate.

11 Comments on Gordon Campbell on the Murray McCully exit

The politicians that are the most evil, corrupt and useful to the oligarchy (do the most economic hits to the people of NZ) get promoted by the banking cabal.
(Wait till you find out the real reason that the Crown’s insider trading Key resigned- where is bankster Key going?).

One day in the future some dogged and devoted historian may uncover something useful or positive that this fumbler might have achieved. For the present, no known record exists of any benefit the McCullyite approach to politics, or life itself, might have brought to our country, in the thirty years we endured his delusion that he had something to offer.
He was a galloping midget, par excellence

McCully going? It appears to be a very timely departure. The imperious manner in which he reached into the administration of our ODA programme was way out of line. Decommissioning NZAID, placing his friends in positions of influence over aid investments and the huge over-runs in costs over a too hastily approved airport project in Munda, Solomon Islands were all ill advised. At Munda the discovery of unexploded ordnance is holding engineers and equipment in a state of expensive idleness. He wants out before the story breaks.

As the politicians are liars that are submerged in a toxic corporate culture one should be wary of all .Politicians even say they represent the peoples interests and yet only aim to keep the Crown’s govt ruling in surplu$.
@Ichiro, it was not a deal for the tortured animals or a deal for the people of NZ. People who get social welfare and health services cut an austerity economy while the Crown and its jet setting minions soak in its ill gotten surplus, give public assets away and keep up the corporate subsidies .

These professional liars( “politicians”) demolish public housing, evict people to develop housing areas for wealthy foreigners and investors ,they leave public housing empty ,they privatize public housing and then they pretend they did not create the housing problems.

Surrounded by fools, bigots and liars, McCully is known to ignore the researched advice of ambassadors and govt advisors in the interests of achieving his narrow goals that usually involve feathering his own nest, stroking his ego or damaging others.
Certainly no investigative journalism undertaken on this disgrace to NZ politics.

What a stupid idiot McCully has proved himself to be, I knew he was an egotistical self centered fool when he wrote to me last year saying he would not support my rescue helicopter efforts for Tonga, he said the RNZAF Orions would continue to be the first line of rescue support….what a load of crap, Orions cost the NZ Tax payer around $40,000 for a Tonga mission, the helicopter around 6,000 and is able to directly pull the person(s) from danger…..ow but wait, he did donate 2 million dollars of our hard earned money to repaint Tonga’s rugby stadium, 2 years later not $1 had been spent on it…yet we would have saved at least 25 to 30 lives with that money, McCully didn’t have the guts to meet me and the Tongan Deputy PM to discuss what was seen as a desperately needed service for Kiwi’s holidaying in Tonga and local Tongans who often suffer great pain and loss due to there being no helicopter service in Tonga.

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